I am always on the lookout to add easy dinners for the weeknight rotation. I’m sure everyone here completely understands where I’m coming from. Getting home from a long day of work, or playing taxi service to your kiddos. It needs to be easy after 5. Sometimes I even forget about certain ones then get super excited whenever my husband suggests them again. I especially love ones that are amazingly delicious as well as easy. Some of my personal favorites for weeknight dinners include Turkey Chili, Skinny Crustless Quiche, Crock pot Red Beans and Rice, Dorito Taco Salad…actually I forgot about a couple of these until just now. They will be re-entered into the rotation soon!
One other thing I try and focus on during the week is to go as gluten free as possible. I have an auto-immune disease called Hashimoto’s, so gluten is not well tolerated by my body. Sadly, half of what I end up making, especially on the weekends, has gluten. I REALLY need to try and refocus on gluten free eating. I want to start trying to switch out my regular all purpose flour with all of the gluten free flours that are available on the market now. Pasta is always one thing that gets to me the most and leaves me with an off feeling. So I’ve started buying only gluten free pasta, and honestly you cannot tell a difference at all in texture. If you could,I would have heard by now from my own personal food critic, whom I love dearly. ;-).
This easy weeknight gluten free pasta recipe is so easy, light and flavorful. I really love that it replaces any white cream sauce with Ricotta Cheese which has a lot less fat and a lot more protein than alfredo sauce. Of course some of the fat is added back in with the bacon, but bacon is a health food in my opinion. You can always replace it with turkey bacon or leave it out all together. I just don’t recommend it because it brings so much of the flavor to this dish.
Hope you enjoy and have a fantastic weekend friends!
- 5 strips bacon (diced)
- 1 small sweet yellow onion (diced 1 -2 inch strips)
- 1½ cups sliced button mushrooms
- 1 cup of frozen peas
- 12 oz Box Gluten Free Penne Pasta
- 1-3 Dashes of Garlic Salt to taste
- 8 oz container low fat Ricotta Cheese
- ⅓ cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
- In a large pot bring water to boiling and cook pasta as per the instructions on the box.
- While the pasta is cooking, start cooking diced bacon in a large skillet over medium/high heat.
- Remove bacon and place in a bowl lined with a paper towel, set aside. Make sure to leave the bacon renderings in the pan.
- Turning the heat down to medium, add the onions. Cook until onions are translucent and starting to caramelize.
- Add the frozen peas and cover. Cook for 5 minutes or until peas are done.
- Lastly add the mushrooms in and continue to cook mixture until mushrooms are browned.
- In a large bowl, add pasta, vegetable mixture, bacon, ricotta cheese, garlic salt and Parmesan cheese and stir well.
- Serve immediately.
Bacon IS a health food!
And I agree: gluten free pasta tastes just as delicious. I rarely notice a difference. My favorite brand is Cappellos because it’s also grain free (on the spendy side, so I don’t buy that brand as much – but it’s tasty!). Thanks for the great weeknight recipe!
Marlynn @UrbanBlissLife recently posted…Classic Chicken Marsala Recipe
Wow this looks great! I love using ricotta in my pastas too. What a great flavour combination! Thanks for linking up with Fabulous Foodie Fridays xx
Lucy @ Bake Play Smile recently posted…Fabulous Foodie Fridays #54
I don’t get to see many GF pasta dinner recipes that are this good! The dinner has great combination of ingredients and flavors. Not to mention, a quick and fast meal. Delicious!
Healing Tomato recently posted…Tandoori Tofu Skewers (Spicy)
Oh this looks SO GOOD! Pinning to make this very soon! Thank you for linking up with us for Fabulous Foodie Fridays.
Lauren @ Create Bake Make recently posted…Fabulous Foodie Fridays #54